By Abdul Basit

South Asia’s Militant Landscape After the Pulwama Attack

South
Asia has one of the highest regional concentration of jihadist groups in the
world, including some of the most-wanted groups by the US such as Al-Qaeda, the
Haqqani Network, the Islamic State of Khorasan (ISK) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
Ahead of the expected US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Jaish-e-Muhammad
(JeM) claimed attack on India’s paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF)
in Kashmir’s Pulwama district has revived the concerns of a more lethal and
dangerous militant landscape in South Asia.

The Pulwama
attack has once again exposed the vulnerability of the two South Asian nuclear
rivals, India and Pakistan, to terrorist blackmail, bringing the two nations to
the brink of war. The aftermath of the attack underscores a new phase of
militancy in violence-infested Kashmir and renewed hostilities between India
and Pakistan. In the absence of joint counter-terrorism and extremism
frameworks at the regional level, South Asian militant groups will continue to
exploit inter and intra-state rivalries to expand their footprints in the
region.

Why is the Pulwama Attack Significant?

The
timing of the Pulwama attack is instructive. It came ahead of US withdrawal
from Afghanistan indicating a revival and return of groups like JeM, which has
25,000 to 35,000 trained militants, to Kashmir. Since the 2016 Pathankot
airbase attack, JeM has steadily increased its presence and activities in
Kashmir. After witnessing a dip between 2008 and 2013, violence and militant
recruitment has spiked in Kashmir since 2015. The number of militants killed in
Kashmir rose from 130 in 2016 to 200 in 2017 and 240 in 2018. In the first two
months of 2019, 31 militants have been killed in Kashmir.

Moreover,
it was a high-profile and mass casualty attack. By ramming an explosive-laden
vehicle in the CRPF vehicle-convoy in a highly militarized zone, JeM has demonstrated
its ability to find gaps in the security arrangements and high-level expertise
of assembling a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED). JeM also
drew large-scale media coverage following the attack giving the group
publicity. For the second time, JeM has successfully exploited India and
Pakistan’s adversarial ties to trigger a war between them. The suicide bomber
Adil Rashid Dar was a local Kashmiri and JeM recruited him by manipulating his
anger and quest for revenge against the Indian forces (for repeated arrests and
humiliation) to serve its agenda of “liberating” Kashmir.

The
attack is also significant given India’s retaliatory airstrikes on alleged JeM
camps inside mainland Pakistan, after a hiatus of five decades. These airstrikes
have redefined the conflict threshold between the two adversaries. In 1999,
even at the height of the Kargil conflict, Indian air force did not cross the
Line of Control. Indian airstrikes signal a qualitative shift in the Indian
position from the strategy of deterrence by denial to deterrence by punishment.
Consequently, this will result in a new unstable equilibrium that could lead to
a low-intensity, limited conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The
absence of a functional India-Pakistan crisis management mechanism further
increases the probability of a limited conflict.

India’s offensive
posturing against Pakistan whenever a terrorist attack takes place on its soil
remains over-simplistic and only partially responds to a larger and much more
complex security challenge that necessitates concerted and continuous joint
efforts.

The
US and the international community’s response to the Pulwama attack and its
aftermath is also pertinent. Instead of urging both India and Pakistan to
desist escalations, for the first time, the US and international community
acknowledged India’s right of self-defense and emphasized de-escalation only
after Indian airstrikes on alleged JeM camps in Balakot. Barring China, no
other country condemned India’s violation of Pakistani sovereignty. This will
have long-term implications on strategic stability and the balance of power in
South Asia.

Lethal and Complex Militant Landscape

Following
its intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, the US forged a counter-terrorism
alliance with Pakistan to track and hunt Al-Qaeda (AQ) remnants in the border
areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. In order to ensure smooth and uninterrupted
Pakistani cooperation, among other things, the US facilitated a border
ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan in 2003. The agreement required
Pakistan to curb cross-border terrorism in Kashmir and take action against
India-focused militant groups on its soil in return for normalization of
relations by India. This dynamic will change after the US exit Afghanistan and
would revive the old conflicts with added complexities.

The
expected US withdrawal will render South Asia’s already complex and diverse
militant landscape more violent and dangerous. Several factors such as porous
borders, ungoverned spaces, easy availability of weapons, growing religious
polarization, and unemployment will further assist these groups to expand their
footprints.

A
possible US exit from Afghanistan will also create a new victory narrative for
the Afghan Taliban which will embolden South Asian jihadist groups earning them
fresh recruits and funding. If this were to happen, it will be a déjà vu of the
late 1980s when Afghan Mujahedeen groups defeated the former Soviet Union. After
9/11, several jihadist groups abandoned their primary agendas and sent their
fighters to Afghanistan to help the Afghan Taliban fight the US. Some factions
of these groups also joined hands with various AQ-linked groups, such as
Jandullah and the Punjabi Taliban. These groups will use Afghanistan as a
launching pad to regroup and relaunch themselves in different local conflicts
in South Asia with a new zeal.

Way Forward

At
the policy level, Pakistan’s response against the JeM militants and its elaborate
network is critical. Kinetic measures against JeM such as sanctions, arrests
and crackdowns will only be helpful in the short-term. Non-kinetic measures
like creating a counter ideological narrative and a comprehensive de-radicalization
and rehabilitation plan would be equally necessary to create incentives for JeM
members to shun militancy. The larger question is how will Pakistan create a
counter ideological narrative against JeM without compromising on the state’s
identical stance on Kashmir? Moreover, rehabilitating a large number of
militants will require a lot of time, resources and a strong political will by
the Pakistani military and political leadership. In 2002, when the military
regime of General Pervez Musharraf banned JeM and took action against its
cadres, the group retaliated with two assassination attempts on him along with
carrying several high-profile attacks inside Pakistan. So, in case, another
round of crackdowns is initiated against JeM, a serious backlash cannot be
ruled out. Moreover, if JeM splinters as a result of heavy-handed crackdowns,
some of its members might gravitate towards groups like Islamic State of
Khorasan (ISK), Al-Qaeda in the Indian Sub-continent (AQIS) or Tehrik-e-Taliban
Pakistan (TTP).

India’s
offensive posturing against Pakistan whenever a terrorist attack takes place on
its soil remains over-simplistic and only partially responds to a larger and
much more complex security challenge that necessitates concerted and continuous
joint efforts. Unfortunately, unlike other regions like the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union (EU), South Asia lacks
regional mechanisms to counter and prevent terrorism, such as sharing of
information and intelligence, joint training programs, patrolling and
operations. Without India-Pakistan cooperation, such initiatives will remain
elusive.